Just about a month ago, the "what's this song" music identification functionality started to roll out to Assistant on both of the new Pixel 2 phones. Google's voice search (for instance, via "Google Now") had this functionality for a long time, but for whatever reason, the transition to the new Assistant stripped that feature away. Although it was back for the Pixel 2, it appears that music recognition in the Assistant is now rolling out to non-Google devices as well.

Google has been toying with changes to the Google Feed in its eponymous app all year, seemingly settling on a translucent look when you swipe right from your launcher home screen, or the three-tab interface in the full app. Google may still be testing different options, so yours may not be the same as mine, but I find it a lot worse than what I had before, especially as I can't swipe away cards to dismiss them anymore.

Another fairly recent introduction, in both views, are the shortcuts at the top of the feed (see above image). By default, four of them are on display: current weather, Eat & Drink, Translate, and Solitaire.

If you're one of those who has yet to even see the two-tab interface, you'll be surprised to hear that Google is already testing out a third tab. Reports indicate that the new button performs a search. The tab might be a bit redundant, given the search bar already present at the top of the page, but perhaps scrolling to the top was a bit too inconvenient for some.

Back in February of last year, Google unveiled Accelerated Mobile Pages - or AMP, for short. In a nutshell, sites can choose to generate AMP versions of their pages (with an automated tool or site plugin), which load extremely quick compared to normal sites. This is due to various restrictions, compression on the included images/video, and caching by Google's own servers.

Nova Launcher is the go-to launcher for so many not just for the sheer amount of customization it offers, but also the speed and frequency at which the team instills new features. However, one feature that people have constantly clamored for has always been left out: Google Now integration. It just couldn't be added due to constraints that Google had put in place. But today, Nova Launcher is finally receiving this long-awaited functionality.

One of the main downsides to using a custom launcher was that you couldn't have an easily-accessible Google Now pane. While your feed is just a swipe away on the Google Now and Pixel Launchers, other applications were barred from using it due to API restrictions. That is, until the developer of Nova Launcher found a way around it by creating the 'Nova Google Companion.'

Last year Google announced an update to the Google app that would bring an additional tab to Google Now. The new interface was meant to separate general items in your feed from more personal data, by partitioning the latter into a new "Upcoming" section. Well, it's been six months since it was announced, and it seems as if almost no one has the feature.

Google Now was a big deal when it debuted years back, but now Google is all about Assistant. The Google Now pane got its last redesign in 2015, but Google appears to be testing something more radical currently. Some users are starting to see a transparent Google Now pane.